Players' reaction:THE MESSAGE was somewhat mixed in the players' tunnel after the game, despondency, frustration and positivity blended with a dash of "these things happen", "it was a missed opportunity" but "there's no reason why we can't take something off Italy".
Outside the more upbeat element of that message most probably would have fallen on deaf ears, exasperation appearing to be the mood that bonded the 60,000 souls making their way home. By the time many of them had taken their seats for the game Ireland were already 1-0 up, their tardiness depriving them of witnessing the night’s one and only highlight. From 34 seconds on it was largely downhill, as Kevin Kilbane conceded, “some would say the goal might have been coming”.
Regrettably for the Hull City man it was he who ensured Bulgaria’s goal did indeed come, turning Stilian Petrov’s cut-back past Shay Given on 74 minutes.
“It just happens, he couldn’t get out of the way, he tried to stop it,” said Richard Dunne, the night’s other goalscorer, offering some sympathy to his team-mate.
“I’m just very, very disappointed,” said Kilbane, “but I think it could have been avoided earlier in the move, their full-back should have been closed down,” he said, in reference to the freedom given to Radostin Kishishev, who picked out Petrov with a sublimely floated cross.
“When you’re in front for so long, it’s hard to take, especially, from my own point of view, with the way we conceded the goal.
“I think in the second half we let them come on to us far too much and ultimately that’s what cost us. We gave them too much ground, their full-backs had a lot of space,” he said.
“You go 1-0 up so early you would hope that would ease us and release the tension a bit, but it didn’t work out that way. We gave them a few opportunities, without Shay being called into action too much, but we allowed them too much room so they were pressuring us. That’s probably the main lesson from tonight, we certainly can’t allow the Italians come on us as much – when you give teams that much space and room that’s where you will always come unstuck.”
Kilbane, though, was at a loss to explain precisely why the team ceded so much space and possession to the visitors, the midfield dropping so deep at times that Robbie Keane and Kevin Doyle were left in splendid isolation.
“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps sometimes you’re just defending a lead, you’ve got the lead and you don’t want to let it slip, that could be it, I don’t know. When we played against Georgia we had to chase the game so we were on the front foot a bit more.
“But we haven’t really produced our best form here (Croke Park) and that’s the truth of it, we’ve not really got at teams. When we went in front we’d expect to go on and get another goal to kill the game off, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Sorry, I’m losing my voice here,” said John O’Shea. “Ah, it’s just disappointing overall when you’re 1-0 so early, home advantage, that second goal is crucial. We had the better chances, the chances to finish them off, but we didn’t and we got punished. They had plenty of the ball, especially in the second half, but they weren’t really going anywhere, we were fairly comfortable.
“It’s a lucky goal from them, ah, it’s hard to take. It was just unfortunate for Kevin, I don’t think there was any real danger if he hadn’t touched it. But we have to take the positives from it, they’re not a bad team, but we should have beaten them. But we still have an advantage over them in the table, we have to take that as the only positive from tonight really. And we have to be positive, if we can get a draw or a win on Wednesday we can beat Italy here, so let’s wait and see.”
Dunne, too, takes heart from the current group standings, the lead over Bulgaria convincing him that while the night was a disappointment it was far from a calamity. “We had to keep the seven-point gap – minimum. And we’ve done that, we’re still in a good position. And we’ve said all along we don’t fear Italy, so we feel we can go there on Wednesday and get a result.”
